The biggest mistake I see is launching based on subjective opinions only. Employees, CMOs or designers have their opinion about what could work.
Most of the time there is no data behind it.
I made a huge mistake myself when I ran Rockay. I had some of the best running socks in the world (all top magazines praised them) and I had a romantic idea about what I should launch next - apparel.I could have used data to drive this decision but I guess you learn with every mistake.
Start off by collecting data on your customers. You will want to set up automatic workflows via your email software to ask customers what products they want to see next.
Ask them what colorways/flavors/scents they want to see next
What competitors of ours do you like and what do you buy from them?What products do you want us to design and develop in the future?
What specific features of the product you bought do they find the most valuable?
Are there any additional features or improvements you would like to see in our products?
What emerging trends or technologies would you like us to explore?
By asking this information you actually get so much data on what to improve, what to develop next and even what trends your clients find interesting.
The problem is that most brands either don’t collect this data or they don’t have a dedicated person to analyze this and take action on it.Here is what you can do.
Export all the answers to a google csv file and make sure each column has titles.
Ask ChatGPT4 or a similar AI to analyze each answer and categorize answers that are the same but worded differently. This is important because you want to make a pivot table for each question to understand what are the most common answers.
Alternatively you can do all this manually and we have done this many times in PurpleFire for our clients because it is so powerful.
Once you have all your most common answers for each question, then it is time to meet with your stakeholders and decide on new products to develop, improvements to existing products and new trends to explore.
You can also use this to find competitors you might want to explore. Make a list of products they sell and what seems to be the biggest and most important attributes.
You also want to launch new variations based on answers from question 1.
Now you have a completely data-driven approach to your product development and this should always be the case.
Do not trust your designers, product engineers and any other industry professionals. Sure they have a big role to play but they will design for their own portfolio and career goals, not based on what your customers actually want. You can’t leave this up to chance.
If you are reading this as a founder, or partner - consider not outsourcing your product development totally to an employee or external company. In the end the product development, quality and future designs are so connected to the health of your brand. You need to be relentless in your pursuit to make the product better.